Fatal Decree (7 page)

“That was a lucky break,” I said.

She smiled ruefully. “Yeah. When I came out onto Dream Island Road and turned onto Gulf of Mexico, I noticed a car behind me, but didn’t think anything about it. No reason to. I guess he followed me here, and took his shot. He probably didn’t see you and Jock, or at least didn’t think you were any danger to him. Bad mistake. I owe you a big one, Jock.”

Jock had been standing quietly next to the BMW. “That’s what friends are for,” he said.

“How did you know, Jock?” I asked. “You reacted so quickly.”

“I’m not sure. Instinct, I guess. There was something wrong about the scene. The BMW was similar to Nell’s and it was right behind J.D. As soon as J.D. got out of her car, he got out of his. It just looked like a setup of some kind. Maybe the fact that Nell’s car was a BMW was banging around in the back of my brain. And I thought I saw a glint of light reflected off his gun. But that may just have been my imagination. I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger though, if he hadn’t shot at J.D. first.”

Steve Carey came over. “J.D., Sharkey and the chief will be here in about ten minutes. The crime-scene people are sending a wrecker to tow the BMW to the sheriff’s forensics garage so they can take a good look at it. The chief said for you to go on into the restaurant and make yourself comfortable until he gets here.”

“I can’t go in there looking like this,” she said.

I noticed for the first time that the slacks she was wearing had a tear at the knee. “Are you hurt?” I asked.

“No. I skinned my knee when I jumped behind that SUV, but nothing serious.”

“Let me look at it, J.D.,” said Steve Carey. The Longboat cops are all trained emergency medical technicians. He bent down and pointed his flashlight at the area where the slacks were torn. “A little road rash. Let me clean it up and get some antiseptic and a bandage on it. You don’t want it to get infected.”

By the time Steve had finished with her knee, Sharkey and Chief Bill Lester drove into the parking lot. Martin Sharkey was a tall man who kept
in good shape and probably wore the same size clothes he had in high school. His close-cropped dark hair was turning gray at the temples. Lester was shorter, his brown hair thinning a bit on the top. He had a little belly that he needed to be careful of, and a demeanor that told you he was in charge, even when his face was split by his famous grin. Both men were well liked and respected on the key, and they often fished with me aboard
Recess.

“Well, Jock,” said Lester as he walked up, “here you are on my island, and the shit hits the fan. What is it with you?”

“Must be my personality, Bill. How was Spain?”

“Muy bueno.”

“Learned some of the lingo?”

“Sí.”

“Good for you.”

“You just heard my entire vocabulary. But the wine was excellent. Where’s Logan? When you two are causing trouble, he’s usually in the mix.”

Logan Hamilton was my best friend on the island. “He and Marie are spending some quality time down in Key West,” I said. “He should be back tomorrow or the next day, assuming the island doesn’t run out of Scotch in the meantime.”

He turned to J.D. “I understand somebody took a shot at my favorite detective.”

“Your only detective,” said J.D. “Jock saved my butt.”

“Bring me up to date.”

“How much do you know about the Alexander murder?”

“Martin called me yesterday about finding the body, but I couldn’t get a flight out until this morning. He kept me updated by phone though, so I’m pretty much up to speed. Do you think this guy killed Nell Alexander?”

“Maybe.” J.D. told Lester and Sharkey what we’d found out from Sam earlier in the day. “I put it all in a report that’s probably on your desk by now. This guy fits the description and the BMW belonged to Mrs. Alexander. I don’t think there’s much doubt that he’s the killer. Maybe the car will give up the evidence we need to be sure.”

A Manatee County Sheriff’s SUV pulled into the lot, towing a trailer.
“Here come our portable lights,” said Lester. “You guys know the drill. We’ll have to have detailed statements from all of you. Why don’t you go on home, and I’ll send somebody by later.”

“We can’t leave,” I said. “Our cars have been impounded.”

“I’ll get Steve Carey to drop you off.”

“We’ll be at my house, Bill,” I said.

I ordered pizza from Oma’s on Anna Maria Island, and the kid in the Jaguar delivered it. He was probably the only pizza dude in the whole country who drove a new Jag. I liked his chutzpa and always gave him a big tip. I opened some cold beer for J.D. and me and an O’Doul’s for Jock. We were still a little shaken from the ordeal at the Lazy Lobster.

“What do you make of this, J.D.?” asked Jock.

“I think you got the guy.”

“But why was he trying to kill you?”

“I don’t know. I guess he was the same one who was on the phone last night.”

“Have you gotten anything from Miami yet?”

“No. But the chief of detectives down there promised me something by noon tomorrow. I think it’ll be a lot more detailed than anything they’ve sent us. But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen the one from tonight. If I’d put him away, I’d remember.”

“If he’s the one who killed Nell,” I said, “I guess both your jobs are done.”

“What do you mean?” asked J.D.

“You got your murderer, and Jock took out the guy who killed Gene’s wife.”

“I don’t know,” said J.D. “There’s something screwy here.”

“What?” I asked.

“I’m not sure. I don’t understand why he was trying to kill me. I had no connection to Nell Alexander until she was killed. I worked the cases in Miami, but we never caught the perp. So why would somebody connect me to the murders and want to put me out of commission?”

“Unless,” I said, “you might have put the Miami killer in jail on other
charges. That would explain why the murders stopped and why the killer is after you.”

“This guy tonight wasn’t anybody I’ve ever seen before. And he couldn’t be over twenty-five. He was too young to be involved in the Miami murders. Maybe he’s just hired muscle, and the real killer is still out there somewhere.”

“Let’s see what the forensics people find in the car and get an identity on the dead man,” said Jock.” Maybe we’ll know more then.”

“J.D.,” I said, “why don’t you stay here tonight. In the spare bedroom.”

“Thanks, Matt. But I think I’d rather sleep in my own bed.”

“We’ve still got to wait for somebody to come take our statements.”

“Since it’s an officer-involved shooting, it’ll be somebody from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement,” said J.D. “The agent will probably have to come down from Tampa. I don’t think they work this late. I’ll call the chief and see what he says.”

She stepped into the kitchen to make her call, returning in a few minutes. “Chief said to go to bed. Somebody will come by tomorrow. They’ll call first. I’m going home.”

“I’ll drive you,” said Jock.

“Thanks, but a patrol car’s coming to get me. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Want another beer?” I asked.

“Not tonight, Bucko. I’m headed for bed.”

“I love it when you call me pet names,” I said.

She grinned and said quietly, “You’re some sicko, Royal. Night, Jock.” And she was out the door.

“I think she likes you, Bucko,” said Jock, grinning.

I gave him the finger and went for more beer.

Jeff Worthington wore a navy-blue suit with a yellow handkerchief in the breast pocket, white dress shirt, yellow tie with blue polka dots, and cordovan loafers with tassels. He was a small man, perhaps five foot six and 135 pounds. His brown hair was thin and a little long over the ears, and his face bore the scars of the acne he’d suffered as a teenager. He had high cheekbones, a slender straight nose, a weak chin marked by a small dimple, and large teeth that, on the rare occasion when he smiled, looked as if they would jump out of his mouth. In short, he had the look of a predator.

This was a good day. The sun was shining, the humidity was low, and passersby were smiling and greeting each other. Worthington stood for a moment on the landing that fronted the main entrance to the Sarasota County Judicial Center, looking up into a cloudless sky. He watched for a moment as a flock of seagulls wheeled in the currents high above, their harsh cries blasting the morning air. He shrugged and walked down the steps leading to the street, a smile struggling to break through the coarse visage he presented to the world.

Jeff Worthington was a lawyer and had been one for about ten minutes. A harried judge had given him the oath of office, stumbling over some of the words, and shooed him out of chambers with a curt mumble of congratulations. All the documents certifying to his newly acquired profession were in the file folder he carried in his left hand. Today was the first day of what he planned to be a very short career. He had one client, one case, one matter to handle to its conclusion, and when that was completed, when he had won the case and done his client’s bidding, he would retire a rich man. The whole thing would be over in days, weeks at the most. Failure was not an option. The wages of failure were death. No appeal, no
stay of execution, no clemency; just the agonizing death that he’d been promised as payment for failure.

Worthington was perhaps the only member of the Florida Bar who had never been to law school. He’d gotten his license to practice law the old-fashioned way. He’d stolen it. From a dead man. That had not been easy, but he was a very smart guy, his intelligence quotient immeasurably higher than the half-wits who served as corrections officers in that pigsty they called Glades Correctional Institution. Fifteen hard years he’d been there, his entire fifteen-year stint. The prison executives were more interested in keeping the prisoners calm than rehabilitating them. Not that rehabilitation usually worked. Most of the cons were dumber than the dumbest of the men who guarded them.

Worthington had grown up in public housing in a Tampa neighborhood that the city ignored. The elementary school that served him and his friends was one of those dying places where the teachers had given up and the administrators could not justify spending any more money on facilities. Jeff was bored with sitting day after day listening to the teachers as they tried to teach him things he already knew. He cut classes without anyone noticing, because to notice a truant kid meant paperwork and the teachers and administrators could find no good reason to spend their time on one more useless task. On the rare occasions when his parents weren’t drunk, they weren’t interested in making sure that the boy went to school.

Jeff was a loner, a boy who wanted nothing to do with the other kids. He scratched around for things to do to occupy his mind, and one day, when he was about twelve, he found himself in the main public library in downtown Tampa. As he ambled idly through the stacks, he pulled random books from the shelves, thumbed through them, and put them back. His curiosity was piqued and he began to read passages from the books he chose so haphazardly. A spark was ignited in his nimble and curious brain and he began to read in-depth books that even his teachers had not read, and perhaps did not know existed.

When he was fifteen, Jeff left the squalid apartment where his parents lived and moved to the streets. He never saw either of his parents again, and as far as is known, they made no effort to find Jeff. He made his living with small crimes, much as he had been doing for most of his life. A little
shoplifting, a small-time burglary or two, a smash and grab. It provided all the money he needed to pay his share of the rent on a small house on the edge of downtown that he shared with several other young men whose circumstances mirrored Jeff’s own.

Most of his roommates were addicted to one or another drug, but Jeff shied away from the temptations offered. He wanted a better life, somewhere other than public housing projects, and he figured that none of the men he lived with would ever get out of the rut in which they found themselves. Certainly not alive.

When he was eighteen, Jeff was ready to make his move. He had studied the real estate market in the Tampa area and was convinced that he could make a lot of money investing in property. He just needed a stake, some money with which to get into the market and begin building his portfolio. He understood leverage, that you put the minimal amount down and borrowed the rest. He also knew that nobody would lend money to a teenager who lived in what amounted to a drug den. So Jeff set about building himself a new identity. He used the computers at the public library and became adept enough with them to fashion a new and fictitious persona. It hadn’t been easy. Computers were still rudimentary devices then, and the Internet was in its infancy. Still, with the help of a very good forger he had become acquainted with on the streets, he was able to turn himself into somebody he very definitely was not.

Jeff’s alias was manufactured from whole cloth, but he appeared to be the scion of a wealthy family in Braintree, Massachusetts. The story was that the son dropped out of college the year before and decided to move to Florida and invest in real estate. He was twenty-one years old. Jeff thought the legend he’d built would do fine, but he still needed capital. About twenty thousand dollars for starters, and Jeff knew just where to get it.

An old warehouse on the edge of an industrial area near downtown Tampa had been turned into a club called simply “The Place.” It was a large space and drew hundreds of people every night. It stayed open until four in the morning, providing its patrons with booze and food and loud music. There was an underground economy within the club that relied on the retail sale of drugs of every kind. The management knew who the
salespeople were and extracted a percentage of their nightly take as the price of doing business.

The best thing about it from Jeff’s perspective was that it was an all-cash business. The owner of The Place advertised it as such. His thinking was that there would be a lot of patrons who would not want their credit card statements to show that they had taken part in the offerings of the establishment.